Is the UK ready for modern warfare, or stuck thinking in yesterday’s battles?

It is moving in the right direction, but the pace of change in warfare is accelerating. The 2025 Strategic Defence Review reflects this reality, with plans to rebuild military capability, increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027, and strengthen resilience and innovation.

These are important steps, but the real challenge is ensuring that defence thinking keeps pace with how quickly conflict itself is evolving.

The war in Ukraine has made one thing clear: modern warfare no longer stands still. Success depends on the ability to adapt, innovate and respond in real time.

Drones are a clear example. Their impact is not just what they do in the air, but how easily they can be deployed, modified and connected to wider systems that gather and share information.

This shift has pushed the UK to prioritise faster procurement and quicker deployment, so new capabilities reach the front line in months rather than years.

At the same time, tensions with Iran and instability in the Middle East show how these lessons are spreading. Conflict is no longer confined to clearly defined battlefields.

Cyber activity, proxy actors, misinformation and attempts to disrupt trade and infrastructure are increasingly used to test and pressure adversaries without escalating to full-scale war.

The UK is already operating in this environment, where competition is constant and often deliberately ambiguous.

A key change is that conflict is often shaped before physical engagement begins. Early warning signs can come from unusual signal activity, disrupted GPS, or interference with communications.

The advantage now lies not just in seeing first, but in understanding what those signals mean and acting on them quickly.

This is where the electromagnetic environment has become a frontline in its own right. Disrupted communications, jammed signals and interference with navigation systems can undermine operations before forces ever meet. These effects can shape decisions, restrict movement and create confusion at critical moments.

For the Armed Forces, this means combining traditional capabilities with what might be seen as a form of digital protection, ensuring they can operate effectively even when systems are degraded or denied.

These threats are not limited to distant conflicts. Across Europe, drone incursions over critical infrastructure have shown how easily modern tools can be used closer to home.

Ports, airports, energy networks and data centres are all potential targets.

For the UK, this reinforces the need to treat national resilience and national security as one and the same, protecting the systems that keep the country running as a core part of defence.

The Strategic Defence Review points in the right direction, with continued investment in new technologies and a stronger focus on readiness.

But structure and mindset matter just as much as equipment. Forces must be able to operate in complex, contested environments, process information quickly and make decisions at speed.

The central takeaway is clear: warfare is becoming faster, more distributed and more dependent on the electromagnetic spectrum. The decisive advantage will lie with those who can understand what is happening earliest and respond effectively.

The UK has a solid foundation in place. The priority now is to build on it with urgency, ensuring that strategy, technology and operations evolve at the pace modern conflict demands.

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Liam Hutcheson is the UK Director at MyDefence

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